COMMUNITY: Fil-Can Author Shirley Camia releases new book

Confronting grief and despair in the loss of her mother, Filipino-Canadian poet and author Shirley Camia announced on CKJS 810AM today the release of her newest collection of poetry, Mercy, as an elegy dedicated to her mother.

Shirley’s mother died at the start of 2016. A few months after her death, as she cope with the loss, Shirley mentioned how she would wake up and and felt compelled to write poems day after day. Thoughts just flowed until she had approximately 50 poems.

An only child, Shirley disclosed how it could be hard to read the poems she wrote to close families without breaking down.

“Expanding breathlessly in the magnitude of loss, Shirley’s fourth collection, Mercy, confronts despair to emerge anew with a bright offering of elegy. Beginning at her mother’s hospital bed. Ethereal and elegant, Shirley’s reflections are grounded in grief as they do the aching, earth-shattering work of mourning and moving forward.”

Winnipeg-born Shirley Camia is the author of the award-winning Children Shouldn’t Use Knives (At Bay Press, 2017), The Significance of Moths (Turnstone Press, 2015), and Calliope (Libros Libertad, 2011).

Catch Shirley at one of the following readings today, Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at the Millennium Library – Carol Shields Auditorium, 251 Donald Street, 7 p.m.

Mercy’s book launching is on May 9, 7 p.m. at the McNally Robinson Booksellers, 1120 Grant Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Shirley will embark on a series of poetry reading across Canada and the U.S. in May as follows: